http://singularityhub.com/2011/05/22/amazons-kindle-books-outsell-hardcover-and-paperbacks-for-first-time/

Amazon’s Kindle Books Outsell Hardcover and Paperbacks For First Time

by Peter Murray May 22nd, 2011 | Comments (4)

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It's all Jeff Bezos's fault!...er, I mean...we should all thank Jeff Bezos!

Remember that whole, “…yeah, but I like books, I like the feel of it in my hands, I like to turn the pages.”

Guess we’re over that.

As yet another sign that the world is going digital, Amazon just announced that their Kindle book sales now surpass all print books–hardcover and paperback combined. The announcement–which is half announcement, half advertisement (it mentions 4 times that the new Kindle with Special Offers is just $114)–mentions that hardcover book sales were surpassed in July 2010 and paperback sales in January 2011. Kindle book sales in 2011 are currently triple what they were this time last year. This year so far, the burgeoning Kindle sales combine with sales from print to give Amazon’s US books the fastest year-over-year growth rate in over 10 years. That includes both units and dollars. Amazon introduced the UK Kindle Store only last year, yet Kindle books there are already outpacing hardcover books more than 2 to 1.

Note that the sales numbers include only paid books and do not include the many out-of-copyright books that Kindle offers for free. However, they do include Kindle books that are used on non-Kindle readers such as iPads, so Kindle’s booming success isn’t all about Kindle.

How awesome is that for Amazon? Kindle books don’t need to be ordered, stored and retrieved in one of their gigantic and hectic Fulfillment centers. The “pickers” don’t have to walk down the miles of aisles to go get you that new Stephen King. But that brings up an important point: the “pickers” don’t have to walk down the miles of aisles to go get you that new Stephen King. What’s going to happen to the pickers? If the trend to replace printed books with digital books continues, which I suspect it will, will the pickers be replaced with “senders,” people who simply push a button from their comfy I-don’t-have-to-walk-everywhere office? Actually it’s probably all automated anyway. Why wouldn’t it be? I guess it’s fortunate for the pickers that Amazon also sells Stephen King t-shirts, coffee mugs and “The Shining” edition shower curtains.

It is clear that pixel is winning over paper, and not just for books. Back in the day scientists used to go to the library and search the stacks for journal articles. Now everything’s online and it’s a pain in the butt if you have to leave your office and trudge down to the library, grouching that your university really needs to up its online journal access. And not only is the book/journal of the future becoming digital, the library of the future is too. The University of Chicago just opened their state-of-the-art Joe and Rika Manseuto Library. With an emphasis on digital, the public space has lots of computers but not a single book. You do your work online and, in the rare case what you’re looking for can only be found in print, robots will fetch you your antiquated tome from the library’s subterranean holdings.

Pixel over paper indeed.

The Kindle revolution took place rather rapidly. Doesn’t it seem like they’ve been around forever now? Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995. Kindle was introduced in November 2007. In less than four years Kindle has won out with a collection of over 790,000 books.

I look at the sales numbers and I can’t help but think that part of our increasing propensity for digital over print isn’t entirely due to getting acclimated to the Kindle. Doesn’t it seem like yesterday that we were saying we’d never get a Kindle? Instant and cheap pair great with impulsive. Click. Done. That was easy. I’m afraid to tell you how many books I have on my Kindle that I haven’t even opened. A bunch of icons on a screen are paltry deterrents to placing orders compared to a shamefully high stack of books on the nightstand. The Kindle sales numbers don’t exclude books that we’ve bought but never read. I suspect they’d be a lot smaller if they did. But as long as I’m happy to buy them, I’m sure Amazon is happy to sell them to me.